Connor BrookeWhen it comes to email marketing, treat your readers like you would your date. Don’t spend your whole time talking and telling stories. Take the time to listen to them! There’s a wealth of information you can find from your customers and prospects that can help increase sales, lead generation or simply engagement.
I know what some of you must be thinking: “Well, we’re doing a good job with our email already”. You very well may be, but there’s always room to improve even more. Why not solidify your rapport with your contact list so they stay engaged for longer and take more action?
Here are a few simple, creative ways you can engage your customers and get their feedback to improve future communication or help develop your product.
Support Feedback
One example is an automated customer survey sent after a customer uses a company’s support system. This is a great way to start a new chapter in the relationship with your customers, as they would usually contact your support team when they’re having a problem with your product or service. Here’s a good example of just that in action when I bought some new headphones online but my order never arrived:
Customer Survey
From time to time, you should look to engage your customers through a survey to hear what they have to say about your product or service. To collect a greater sample of replies and make your customers feel special to be heard, , try including a number of raffle prizes to incentivize your customers to give feedback. Here’s a great example by Three, the mobile network company:
User Interaction
Have a look at the bottom of this email feedback campaign. Here, Uber is asking the user to provide feedback “What’s your next destination?”, right within the email. Obviously this is just an animated GIF which links to an external site, however it’s a very clever to receive feedback and drive a click-through:
Simple Customer Referendum
You may want to use a “Yes” or “No” based question to receive feedback from your customers. Answers collected from these campaigns can be stored and used to segment customers by behavior and preferences. In this case, British Gas would be segmenting their data based on their customers showing their loyalty to the brand. The segment of customers who choose ‘No’ would potentially receive new email marketing material so British Gas could win them back.
Product & Services Review
Finally, you can use email feedback to prompt users to leave feedback on websites based on their purchases or use of services. Customer reviews are extremely valuable, and online businesses are looking even closer on how they can engage with customers to leave quality reviews more often. Here’s how Airbnb and eBay engage customers through triggered emails after their purchase:
Try using one or two of the methods demonstrated here to listen more closely to your customers. Not only will you get valuable data, you’ll also win over customer trust by providing value and showing you care.
Have you tried some of these methods already? Which has worked best for you?
Read more: A Two-Way Conversation With Your Brand’s Customers Online
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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Customer satisfaction surveys can be a great way to see where you’re standing with your service or product. However, they can be quite time-consuming and yield a low number of answers. Customers are much more likely to give their opinion soon after the purchase, rather than at random times when surveys are being conducted. Too often the questions asked in surveys are outdated and don’t necessarily apply to current issues or product features.
That’s why a much better solution for client data management are customer reviews. They reduce your spending on market research and provide a steady flow of relevant and unaffected opinions. The easiest option to manage that is through hiring a third-party feedback collecting company, like eKomi or Bazaarvoice, who great solutions to help you monitor customer satisfaction in real time and to keep your finger on the pulse when problems arise.
Collecting authentic reviews is an excellent solution to efficiently manage client data as it requires minimal effort on both sides. Customers will point towards the areas your product is lacking in but are also eager to praise you, which brings a clearer view without affecting their opinions by survey questions.